


The Persistence of Memory

by em_gnat



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Sad childhood memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 21:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11929749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gnat/pseuds/em_gnat
Summary: Emily writes a letter to Wyman and shares her earliest memory.





	The Persistence of Memory

When last we spoke, you told me your earliest memory was of watching a poisonous snake go through the rose bushes in the garden, and how you knew from the red and yellow bars that it was poisonous, but that you didn’t want to call your nanny because you knew she’d have one of the house guards kill it. And it wasn’t hurting anyone, you said, it was sliding away from the house, after all. And you just watched it go, quiet, under the drooping rose petals. You were four years old.

 

And then you laughed, sadly, because you said it had probably gone off to the docks and gotten caught in some poor eel-catcher’s net, then bitten the eel-catcher, or died on her knife, and you really hadn’t done anyone a favor at all.

 

I didn’t have anything to share then, but I’ve had some time to think about it, and now I do. 

This is my oldest memory.  Let me try to share it with you.

 

 

_ Late at night, waking, to the sound of an audiograph playing in the next room.  Tinny sound echoing the remembered audience of a more populated chamber, of a different night; of clinking crystal glasses and haughty laughter. I slide from the warmth of the bed, pulled toward the opened door, toward the gold bar of light, toward the sound of-- _

 

_ Mother’s softsweet voice singing along with the music. There were words but I don’t remember them. What I remember was-- _

 

_ The rise and fall of her breath, like lapping waves. And my father singing along, even softer, his voice a low counterpoint. I curl my fingers around the door, push it open just enough to peer in and see-- _

 

_ Mother in her long nightgown, the light from the lamps glowing through the pale gauze. Her hair a shining black scarf trailing down her back. My father- without his coat on, can you imagine? - my father, in just his shirtsleeves, his collar undone, the cuffs rolled up. What a sight; the two of them dancing, slow and softly swaying; mother’s bare feet atop father’s boots, as he waltzes them both around the room. _

 

 

You're probably thinking: Emily, what does any of this have to do with the snake beneath the rose bushes? 

I'm going to tell you. 

Love and death, Wyman: they abide in a garden on a warm spring day.They dance together around a gold-lit room at night. 


End file.
